It’s been a while since we last posted anything on the blog, but a lot has happened in the months since our last missive. The most important change of course, is the fact that we have moved the studio across Buxton to our new home at The Green Man Gallery, a former hotel in the town. It was something of a gargantuan task – a lot of heavy equipment to be moved, not to mention dozens of boxes of ceramic ware, both our own and that of our students. This wouldn’t have been so bad if we were moving to a ground floor studio. Hell, no! Our new venue is on the first floor… and there’s no lift! Everything had to be lugged up several flights of stairs – the wheels and equipment, workbenches, storage shelves and the rest. But we now have a great place in which to work, full of light and space.
Overall, the new venue is great. The Green Man Gallery is a not-for-profit art hub run by its twelve member artists, of which Amanda and I are two. The main ground floor exhibition gallery contains work by the members as well as hosting frequent guest exhibitions by other artists from the area. There’s also a shop which sells smaller items by the members, cards and smaller pieces of ceramic ware. Guest designer/makers display their work there too. The resident artists each share a studio on the first floor which means extra hanging space, as well the chance to see and chat to the artists while they’re working.
Many of the resident artists run workshops and classes in different kinds of art disciplines; a new influx of members in the last year has meant a whole new exciting schedule of courses were due to begin in the first few months of 2020. Our own programme of events began in mid-March with the first meeting of the Buxton Sketching Group.
This was really well attended with over thirty people meeting up at the gallery before venturing out to the area around Buxton baths to sketch for a couple of hours. What was most encouraging was the number of beginners wanting to learn to draw. In fact, there were so many requests I had to plan a tutorial workshop on urban sketching before the second meeting. Unfortunately, the coronavirus lockdown was enforced before we could do this and we were forced to postpone. Also postponed were two mixed media painting workshops I was planning to run, and an expressive drawing workshop. Be assured these will run once the Green Man Gallery reopens. Workshops by the other member artists have also been affected. My colleague Jenny Mackenzie was planning to run several watercolour workshops which, sadly, had to be postponed. The Green Man’s annual Spring Gathering was cancelled and our pottery classes were affected too. Our students are now forced to wait until the end of the lockdown to complete their sessions.
All in all the gallery has suffered from the unfortunate consequences of the lockdown, but the miracle of cyberspace has saved it from being a complete washout. The Spring Gathering was shown online and there are several creative tasks which have recently been launched which visitors are welcome to participate in. Check out the Green Man Gallery website and Facebook page for details (www.thegreenmangallery.com). At least the lockdown has given all the artists a chance to produce some new things. I’ve been working on some mixed media paintings and have a series of instructional videos in the pipeline. My work is exhibited and for sale online at The Green Man Gallery and here on our own website. Take a look and see what you think.
Earth Pig Pottery 